if you could go back and tell your pre-buzzerbeater self the BEST possible way to spend your time for the first THREE seasons, what would you say?
As you know you and I have already had a little exchange on this issue on the Off-Site Forum....But I like how you posed the question here so I wanted to chime in.....I have often told people if I had to over, I would get my arena completed earlier and it make it more of a priority than I did....That said, I would never not have training as a priority with my team...Even now in the NBBA I still train players.
If I could go back, what i would sacrifice is, winning. I was so determined to win right from the beginning, and found myself in a very, very tough DiV league at that time, that although I kept my training program going at all times, and I continued to build my arena, I spent too much money on quality players to always stay in contention and keep promoting.
If I could go back, I would not worry about promoting for 3-5 season and would put everything I have into training and my arena; that way when I began to promote by choice I would always maximize the promotion bonus because my Arena would would be maxed and then as I promoted and needed more expensive players i could freely spend on those players without regard or worry that I am spending money that could be going towards my infrastructure (arena).
But again, the trainees cannot be emphasized enough...They are extremely important, and if new teams do not have a crop of trainees, they are definitely leaving something on the table...and missing out on one of the most fun parts of this game..Nothing like waking up on Friday morning to little green arrows :-)